Is Abortion Wrong?

[At the end of this article are links to videos on this subject]

Is abortion wrong?

Because this is such a hotly debated topic, we need to strip it of the emotion that surrounds it and approach it logically. The best way to do this is through a syllogism. This is how a syllogism works: we state two premises, and if they are correct, the third statement will necessarily be true.

Here is the syllogism we will consider:

1. Abortion terminates an innocent human life.

2. It is wrong to terminate an innocent human life.

Therefore:

3. Abortion is wrong

If we can show premises one and two to be correct, then the conclusion (number three) must also be correct. So let’s first consider premise number one: Abortion terminates an innocent human life. Is that true?

Premise #1: Abortion terminates an innocent human life

There are many things we could say about that statement, but the most important concerns the definition of the word “life.” Is a fetus alive?

If you look up the definition of “life” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, you find these definitions among others:

“The quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body”

and

“An organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.”

According to these definitions, if we want to know if something is alive, we need to find out if it is different from something that is dead and if it has the capacity for growth and reaction to its surroundings. Is this true of a fetus?

A baby is usually born in the ninth month of gestation. Most of us would agree that a baby, when it is born, is alive. But when did it become alive? The moment that it came out of the birth canal? If so, the definition for life would be relocation just a few inches from the birth canal to outside the mother. That’s not very scientific. So, obviously, life doesn’t begin in the ninth month.

So, how about the eighth month? During this month, the baby is almost completely formed. Nothing really happens that indicates the beginning of life.

So, we have to back up to the seventh month. In the seventh month, the baby’s hearing develops and the baby responds more frequently to stimuli such as sound, pain, and light. Obviously, there’s life at that point, so maybe something happens in month six to cause life.

In month six, the baby’s veins become visible and finger and toe prints are distinguishable. The eyes also open and the baby responds to sound. It sure seems to be alive at this point, so maybe we need to go back to month five.

In month five, the baby begins to move and hair begins to grow. Because we don’t usually find hair growing on a dead person, we can reasonably conclude that at this point that the baby is alive.

In month four, the eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, nails, and hair are formed. Reproductive organs are developed, so we can do an ultrasound to determine the gender.

So far, we’ve seen nothing to indicate that at any point the baby was not alive and now is. So, maybe the magic happens in month three!

In month three, the arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. The baby can open and close its mouth. All organs are present and will continue to mature. The circulatory and urinary systems are working. Yes, the baby is alive in month three, so we have to go to month two.

In month two, the baby’s facial features continue to develop. The brain and spinal cord are formed. A heartbeat can even be detected. We cannot overstate the importance of this fact. One of the first things we do if we find someone lying on the floor is to check for a heartbeat. We all know that a heartbeat shows that the person is alive. We must not disregard common sense just because the person is located inside the uterus.

So, we come all the way back to the first month of gestation. The fertilized egg is growing. Remember—the ability to grow is one of the definitions of life. A face starts to develop and circulation begins. Although the baby is only a quarter of an inch long, the tiny heart begins to beat.

So, even in the first month, we have something in the mother that is growing and has a heartbeat. There’s nothing in this whole gestational process that we can point to and say, “There was no life here, but now there is” unless we go all the way back to the fertilization of the egg—conception.

What is inside the mother is a human being. To end its life is to terminate the life of an innocent human being.

There is another issue that we need to deal with before moving on to premise number two, and that is the argument that we can destroy the fetus because while it’s still in the mother, it’s not viable—it can’t survive on its own. Is that a good argument for abortion? Let’s take a closer look.

Viability of the fetus

I think we would all agree that an unborn baby probably could not survive on its own in the first several months of pregnancy. But does that mean it’s acceptable to ends its life?

If you step back and think about it, that argument doesn’t make sense. No, the baby could not survive on its own, but what is it that makes a person able to survive on their own? There are three things that make it possible for any person to survive on their own, and I think we’ll find that unborn babies are not the only nonviable people.

Three things are needed for viability: The ability to determine need, the ability to meet the need, and the availability of the means to meet the need.

First, the ability to determine our needs.

If you are going to survive, you have to understand that you have needs. Even after birth, a baby can’t do this. Put a naked 5-year-old alone on the street and it probably won’t survive, either.

Of course, this also leads to the subject of the mentally handicapped and people with dementia. A person who is close to death usually stops eating because they lose mental capacity to understand their need for food. An elderly dementia patient may also walk out into the blizzard without a coat and freeze to death. They can’t survive on their own—are we supposed to kill them, too?

So, there are many people that can’t survive on their own because they don’t have the ability to understand their needs. Just because an unborn baby is in the same situation doesn’t justify killing them.

Second, we need the ability to meet our needs.

If I were to wake up one morning alone and paralyzed, I would mentally understand my needs, but I wouldn’t be able to go to the kitchen to get something to eat. If I laid there long enough, I would eventually die. My mind would know what I need, but I wouldn’t be physically able to do anything about it. No one in their right mind would claim that I wasn’t a person, but I would be unable to survive on my own.

Third, we need the availability of the means to meet the need.

If a person was lost in the desert with no food or water, he would eventually die. He would know his needs and have the ability to meet them, but what he needs is not available. We wouldn’t say he’s not a person. When we found his scorched bones rotting under the heat of the sun, it would make the headlines. A person tragically died of thirst. He died because he was nonviable—simply because what he needed for survival was unavailable.

A baby in the womb is not viable, but neither are people at many other stages of life. When we call the baby a “fetus,” somehow we think that distinguishes it from being human. But we don’t think that when we call a person a “toddler,” or “teenager,” or a “senior citizen.” It’s just a stage of life. But it’s still a person.

Let’s review the three things we need to be viable:

The ability to determine our needs
The ability to meet our needs
The availability of the means to meet our needs

An unborn baby, of course, is nonviable, but neither are many other people at all different stages of life. If we’re going to be so fixated on discrimination, let’s talk about discriminating against a person simply because of their location, which in this case, is in what should be the protective custody of the mother’s body.

So, we’ve looked at our first premise: abortion terminates an innocent human life, and we know that even a nonviable fetus is an innocent human life. Now let’s consider our second premise: it is wrong to terminate an innocent human life.

Premise #2: It is wrong to terminate an innocent human life

Is it wrong to terminate an innocent human life? The answer to this one is easy. Everyone knows it’s wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone lobbying to remove a law against murder. But what makes it wrong? What makes humans so special that we’re not supposed to kill each other?

It’s simple—human life has value. When God was creating, He just commanded the animals into existence. He said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth…” (Genesis 1:20). But when it was man’s turn, Genesis 2:7 states that God “formed man of the dust of the ground.” He took special care with people.

The Bald Eagle is the National Bird of the United States, so it is protected. The Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act prohibits doing anything with an eagle, or its nest, or its eggs—including killing, capturing, possessing, moving, or selling—even if it’s already dead. The fine is a maximum of $5,000 or one year in prison for the first offense, and $10,000 or two years in prison for the second offense.

So, we can’t even take a feather from a dead eagle or touch an eagle’s egg, but we can slaughter a human inside its mother. That, my friends, is the definition of insanity.

As humans, we are different from the rest of creation, and God has given us authority over it. We have much more value than eagles.

Most importantly, though, we have value because God loves us, as humans, more than anything else in creation. He was loving enough to give us the choice to serve Him or rebel, and when we chose to rebel, He humbled Himself enough to come into His creation as a man, eventually submitting to death. He didn’t do that for the eagles. He didn’t even do it for the angels. He did it for the humans, because we, like nothing else in creation, are made in His image.

When we abort a baby, we terminate the life of an innocent human being who is specially created in the image of God. Abortion terminates the life of an innocent human being and terminating the life of an innocent human being is wrong. Therefore, abortion is not only wrong, but it is an absolute disgrace to humanity. In my opinion, there should be nothing in our laws that carries a harsher penalty than the intentional slaughter of innocent human beings, regardless of their location.

Video 1: Is abortion wrong?